Chapter 265: The Usual Call

The recording went around campus faster than the ranking update had.

By the following afternoon Jin had watched three separate groups of students slow down the same four seconds of footage on their phones — the hesitation, the lift of Anvil’s head, and the gap opening beside the horns.

The footage showed the result clearly enough, but the cause was harder to settle. The theories started with a pressure skill, a bloodline aura, some kind of sound. One second-year insisted confidently that Glitch had roared and the arena mics had cut it.

Jin let them speculate. The match report mentioned a pressure effect acquired during evolution, which gave the discussions something official to quote without explaining how Glitch produced it.

The tactical response arrived faster than the theories. On the training floor that evening he overheard a Rank-24 girl telling her partner, flatly, that nobody was going to trade a charge with the Astor lizard anymore — that the whole answer was distance and never letting him get inside four meters.

"He has to close to use it," she said. "Both of the things he’s got only work up close. So don’t be up close. Make him walk at you for the whole match and hit him on the way in."

Her partner said something about the mass.

"So don’t be there when it arrives," she said, like it was obvious, and Jin — sitting four benches away with a nutrition worksheet he wasn’t filling in — had to concede that as scouting reports went, it was a good one.

Fair. I’d keep my distance too.

Nobody said the word Faultline. Nobody could. It had never left a private Engine instance in its life.

Elsa had messaged before dinner: Eight. Have him where I can see him this time.

They talked every couple of days, and Jin had been expecting this call since he sent her Glitch’s updated profile. He was waiting with the phone when it rang.

Elsa’s face filled the screen at an angle that suggested she was holding the tablet in one hand and eating with the other.

"Your camera’s terrible."

"Hello to you too," Jin said.

"No, move it, I can see a wall and part of your ear." A pause while she chewed. "Where is he?"

"Behind me," Jin said.

"Move."

Jin moved. He turned the phone around and propped it on the feed crate so that most of the yard was in frame, and Glitch — who had been pointedly asleep — lifted his head into the shot.

There was a silence from the other end that lasted three full seconds.

"Okay," Elsa said. "Okay, the messages did not cover that."

"I sent you the profile," Jin said.

"You sent me a number, Jin. Numbers don’t have horns." The tablet moved; she was walking somewhere. "Mum. Mum, come here, you have to see this — no, now, it’s the lizard—"

"He’s not a lizard anymore," Jin said, "he’s an atavistic draconic variant," and enjoyed it enormously.

"He’s an enormous idiot is what he is. Make him turn around. I want the tail."

"He doesn’t take requests," Jin said.

"He takes requests from me."

He did, as it turned out. Glitch got up, stretched, and turned in a slow circle that put every part of him on camera, and Jin decided not to think too hard about which of them the animal was actually showing off for.

Elena arrived in frame, still in her hydroponics overalls, and put a hand over her mouth.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, sweetheart, he’s huge."

"Two sixty-one."

"Is he well? Is he eating? Is he in pain from growing like that?"

"He’s fine. Doyen’s checked him about nine times." He shifted so she could see better. "Ma, how’s your shoulder? You said the loading bay rotation came back."

"They changed the lifting rotation," Elena said. "I told you that yesterday."

"You told me the rotation changed. Did your shoulder get better?"

She hesitated, then waved a hand. "A little."

"Then keep letting somebody else do the heavy crates," Jin said. "Please."

"I am." Elena smiled at him. "You can stop looking like your father now."

Somebody off-screen laughed.

Then Arthur was there, and Arthur didn’t say anything at all for a while.

He looked at Glitch the way none of the others had — at the feet first, then the shoulder line, then the way the weight sat over the forelimbs. An ex-Tamer’s inventory.

"Low," he said at last. "He’s kept his frame low."

"Yeah," Jin said.

"That’s good. Those feet are well placed." Arthur leaned closer to the camera. "He’s built to push. He should be difficult to tip once he sets himself." A pause. "How’s his balance in a turn?"

"Bad for three days. Fine now," Jin said.

"He’ll keep improving with practice." Arthur sat back. "How are you, though? You’ve had a fight."

"I won it," Jin said.

"That’s not what I asked."

Jin looked at the crate for a second.

"The other beast got hurt worse than I meant," he said. "It’s going to recover. Its tamer’s going to lose several days waiting for him to heal."

Arthur nodded slowly. "Did you stop when he went down?"

"Straight away."

"Good. Learn what you can from the strike. You don’t need to spend the evening punishing yourself for winning a fair match."

Jin leaned back against the crate. "I know. I’m glad we won."

"You should be," Arthur said, and smiled. "Your sister’s made me watch it three times."

Elsa, from somewhere off to the side: "Also he’s going to be so expensive."

"Thank you, Elsa," Jin said.

"I’m just saying. He eats like four of you." Her face reappeared. "You can pay for that, right?"

"Yes," Jin said.

"Jin."

"Yes." He meant it, and said it plainly enough that she’d believe him. "The hatchery’s fully paid off. I still have a reserve, and academy support covers part of the care. I can pay the new orders without missing anything."

"But?"

He hadn’t said but. She’d heard it anyway, which was extremely Elsa.

"But the ration’s permanent now," he said. "Bigger feed, minerals, more vet checks, forever. I’d rather have income that goes up with it than watch a fixed pile go down."

"So ask them to pay you more," Elsa said.

"I’ll send them your recommendation," Jin said.

"You should. I can sound very official—"

Flicker chose that moment to walk into frame, which ended the argument instantly.

She crossed the mat beside the crate at her own pace, deliberate and steady, went past Jin without acknowledging him at all, and settled against Glitch’s foreleg. Jin reached down to straighten the towel beneath her feet.

"Oh," Elena said softly.

Glitch, without opening his eyes, shifted his leg a few centimeters to give her a better angle.

Elsa leaned closer to her screen. "Fine. He can stay."

"I’ll tell him he’s passed inspection," Jin said.

"Tell Flicker too. She’s doing most of the work."

Jin checked the supply order after they hung up, adjusted the standing quantity, and confirmed it.

Then he sat down on the crate with the yard quiet around him and opened the Engine.

[Accumulated development: sufficient for Star advancement.]

[Sync available.]

There was enough now. The avatar had kept working through Glitch’s recovery, the Coin grind, and the days of adjustment after the fruit. Jin checked the projected transfer, including the skill that had waited through all of it.

Glitch had been comfortable all day, and Jin had left the next few evenings free for this. He booked a private care stall for the following evening and put the monitoring kit beside his bag.

Tomorrow, then.